CHAPTER

• • • • • •

FRANC£ IN TH£ 1920s

THE FRENCH FILM INDUSTRY AFTER WORLD WAR I

French film production declined during World War I, as many resources
were drained away to support the fighting. Moreover, American films in­
creasingly entered France. In the years immediately following the war's
end, only 20 to 30 percent of films screened there were French, with Holly­
wood supplying most of the rest.
French producers faced an uphill struggle in rrying to regain their
prewar strength. Throughout the late silent era, industry experts believed
that French production was in a crisis. In 1929, for instance, France
made 68 features, while Germany produced 220 and the United States
562. Even in 1926, the worst pre-Depression year for European produc­
tion, Germany had managed 202 films to France's 55, while Hojjywood
outstripped both with about 725. In 1928, one of the best years for the
Europeans, France made 94 films, compared to 221 for Germany and
641 for the United States. As such figures suggest, France's "crisis" fluc­
tuated in its severity, but the struggle to boost production gained little
ground in the postwar decade.

Competition from Imports

What created the problems confronting French film production between
1918 and 1928? For one thing, imported films continued to pour into
France in the 1920s. American films were the most numerous, especially
early in the decade. Even though America's share declined steadily
throughout the mid- to late 1920s, other countries, primarily Germany
and Great Britain, gained ground faster than did France.

85
86 CHAPTER 4 France in the 1920s

TOTAL NUMBER PERCENT RELEASED IN FRANCE

rations in other industrialized countries had not yet
YEAR OF FEATURES FRENCH AMERICAN GERMAN OTHER
caught hold. During this decade, between 80 and 90 per­
cent of French cinemas were owned by individuals. Be­
1924 693 9.8 85 2.9 2.3

cause it was easier to make money in distribution and ex­

1925 704 10.4 82 4.1 3.5
hibition, people investing in the film industry usually put
1926 565 9.7 78.6 5.8 5.9
their money into one of these areas, avoiding the risks of
production.
1927 581 12.7 63.3 15.7 8.3

As a result, the French tendency toward small pro­

1928 583 16.1 53.7 20.9 9.3
duction companies persisted. Someone, often a director
1929 438 11.9 48.2 29.7 10.2
or star, would raise money for a film. If it failed, the
The situation for exports was little better. The do­
mestic French market itself was relatively small, and films
seldom could recover their costs without going abroad.
Foreign films, however, were difficult to place in the lu­
crative American market, and only a tiny number of
French films had any success there during this period.
With American films dominating most other markets, the
French could count on only limited export-primarily to
areas that already had cultural exchange with France,
such as Belgium, Switzerland, and French colonies in
Africa and Southeast Asia. Thus there was a continuous
call for a distinctively French cinema that might help
counter foreign competition, both at home and abroad.
Companies were apparently willing to experiment, and
several directors central to the fledgling French Impres­
sionist movement-Abel Gance, Marcel L'Herbier, Ger­
maine Dulac, and Jean Epstein-made their early films
for large firms.
Disunity within the Film Industry
French production was also hampered by disunity. Be­
fore World War I two big companies, Pathe and Gau­
mont, controlled the French film industry. After the
war, both cut back severely on production, the riskiest
sector of the industry, and concentrated instead on surer
profits from distribution and exhibition. Thus the
largest French firms backed off from vertical integra­
tion just as vertically integrated firms were strengthen­
ing the Hollywood industry. France's production sector
consisted of a few large and medium-size firms and of
many small companies. The latter often made only one
or a few films each and then disappeared. This artisanal
production strategy offered little hope for successful
competition with America.
Why were there so many small companies in France?
The answer lies partly in domestic business traditions. In
the 1920s, French business was still dominated by small
companies; the move toward mergers and big corpo­
company went out of business or struggled along for
another film or two. Many films of this era also had low
budgets. Even by the late twenties, when the film indus­
try was slightly better off, one expert estimated the av­
erage cost of a French feature at $30,000 (in 1927) to
$40,000 (in 1928). (During the late 1920s, budgets for
Hollywood features averaged more than $400,000.)
Thus, the interests of the three sectors of the
industry-production, distribution, and exhibition­
often conflicted. Most important, small exhibitors had
no stake in French production. They wanted to show
whatever would bring them the most money-usually
American imports. Responding to the demands of the­
ater owners, distributors provided Hollywood films.
Moreover, it was often cheaper to purchase a foreign
film than to produce a French film.
Prod ucers repea tedly called for the government to
limit imported films. Inevitably, however, the more
powerful distributors and exhibitors, who made most
of their money on imports, opposed any quota, and
they typically won out. Despite some minor measures
to limit importation in the late 1920s, a strong quota
was not passed until the 1930s.
Not only did the government fail to protect produc­
ers from foreign competition, it also assailed the indus­
try with high taxes on movie tickets. During the 1920s,
these taxes ran anywhere from 6 to 40 percent, depend­
ing on a theater's size and income. Such taxes hurt every
level of the industry, since exhibitors could not risk los­
ing patrons by raising admission prices and hence they
could not pay as much to the distributors and produc­
ers of the films.
Outdated Production Facilities
To make matterS worse, technical facilities were out­
dated. As in other European countries, French produc­
ers depended on the glass studios built before the war.
The lack of capital investment hampered companies in
reequipping these studios to catch up with the techno­
logical innovations American firms had made during the
1910s, particularly in lighting (see pp. 70-72).

As a result, French filmmakers were unaccustomed
to using artificial lighting extensively. In the late teens,
French visitors to Hollywood were awed by the vast
lighting systems. As director Henri Diamant-Berger ob­
served in early 1918, "Lighting effects are sought and
achieved in America by the addition of strong light
sources, and not, as in France, by the suppression of
other sources. In America, lighting effects are created;
in France, shadow effects are created."! That is, French
filmmakers would typically start with sunlight and
block off parts of the light to create dark patches within
the set. American filmmakers had more flexibility, elim­
inating sunlight altogether and creating exactly the ef­
fects they wanted with artificial light.
There were some attempts to bring this kind of con­
trol to French filmmaking. In 1919 director Louis Mer­
canton rigged up portable lighting equipment to take
on location for his realist filmmaking. For the epic The
Three Musketeers (1921-1922), Diamant-Berger in­
stalled American-style overhead lighting in a studio at
Vincennes, which thus became one of the earliest stu­
dios in France to be so equipped. Modern lighting tech­
nology became increasingly available during the] 920s,
but it remained too expensive for widespread use.
Although some new studios were built, few had ex­
tensive backlots of the sort owned by the larger Ameri­
can and German producers. Most studios were in the
Parisian suburbs, surrounded by houses rather than by
open space. Large sets often had to be constructed in
rented studios. Partly as a result of this and partly
through a desire for realism, French filmmakers went
on location more often than did their counterparts in
Germany or the United States. Chateaux, palaces, and
other historic landmarks appear as the backdrops of
many French silent films; filmmakers also made a virtue
of necessity by using natural landscapes and scenes shot
in French villages.
MAJOR POSTWAR GENRES
Despite foreign competition, industry disunity, lack of
capital, government indifference, and limited technical
resources, the French industry produced a variety of
films. In most countries, serials declined in prestige dur­
ing the late teens, but in France, they remained among
the most lucrative films well into the 1920s. Big firms
like Pathe and Gaumont found that a high-budget cos­
tume drama or literary adaptation could make a profit
only when shown in several parts. Because moviegoers
regularly attended their local theater, they were willing
to return for aU the episodes.
tvlajor Postwar Genres 87
4.1 Some scenes
in L'Agonie des
aigles ("The
Agony of the
Eagles," 1921), a
Pathe film about
Napoleon, were
shot on location
oLltside
Fontainebleau.
Some French serials of the postwar era followed the
established pattern, with cliffhanger endings, master
criminals, and exotic locales, as in Louis Feuillade's Tih­
Minh (1919). But social pressures against the glorifica­
tion of crime and perhaps also a sense that the formula
was becoming stale led to changes. Feuillade, whose
films were now virtually Gaumont's sole output, turned
to serials based on popular sentimental novels with Les
Deux gamines ("The Two Kids," 1921) and continued
in this vein until his death in 1925. Diamant-Berger's
epic adaptation of The Three Musketeers was among the
decade's most successful films. Henri Fescourt directed
Mandrin (1924), whose twelve episodes continued the
traditions of kidnaps, disguises, and rescues-but pre­
sented them as swashbuckling feats in an eighteenth­
century setting.
Whether made in serial format or not, many presti­
gious and expensive productions were historical epics.
In many cases film companies economized by using
French monuments as settings (4.1). Such films were
often intended for export. The Miracle of the Wolves
(1924, Raymond Bernard) was the most lavish French
historical film yet made; while its interiors used sets,
many scenes were shot in the medieval town of Carcas­
sone. The film's producer, the Societe des Films His­
toriques, gave it a gala New York run, but, as often hap­
pened with such attempts, no American distributor
purchased The Miracle of the Wolves.
A modest genre was the fantasy film, and its most
prominent practitioner was Rene Clair. His first film,
Paris qui dart ("Sleeping Paris," aka The Crazy Ray,
1924), was a comic story of a mysterious ray that para­
lyzes Paris. Clair used freeze-frame techniques and un­
moving actors to create the sense of an immobile city.
Several characters flying above the city escape the ray
and proceed to live luxuriously by looting whatever they
want; soon they track down the source of the problem
and set things moving again. In Clair's Le Voyage imagi­
naire ("The Imaginary Journey," 1926), the hero dreams
that he is transported by a witch to a fairyland, created
with fancifully painted sets (4.2). Such fantasies revived
88 CHAPTER 4 France ill the 1920s
a popular tradition of the early cinema in France, draw­
ing upon camera tricks and stylized sets somewhat as
Georges MeJies and Gaston Velie had done.
Comedies continued to be popular after the war.
Max Linder, who had been lured briefly to Hollywood,
returned to make comedies in France, including one of
the earliest comic features, Le Petit cafe (1919, Ray­
mond Bernard). Linder played a waiter who inherits a
large sum of money but must go on working to fulfill his
contract; comic scenes follow as he tries to get himself
fired. The film's witty touches (4.3) made it a surprise
hit and helped give the comic genre more respectability
in France. Other important comedies were made by
Clair, whose The Italian Straw Hat (1928) brought him
an international fame that would grow in the sound era.
THE FRENCH IMPRESSIONIST
MOVEMENT
Between 1918 and 1929, a new generation of filmmak­
ers sought to explore the cinema as an art. These direc­
tors considered French filmmaking stodgy and preferred
the lively Hollywood films that had flooded into France
during the war. Their films displayed a fascination with
pictorial beauty and an interest in intense psychological
exploration.
The Impressionists' Relation to the Industry
These filmmakers were aided by the crises that plagued
the French industry. Because companies would often
shift their policies or reorganize, filmmakers had various
ways of obtaining financing. Some Impressionist direc­
tors also divided their time between avant-garde projects
and more profit-oriented films. Germaine Dulac made
some important Impressionist films, including The Smil­
ing Madame Beudet and Cossette (both 1923), but she
spent much of her career making more conventional dra­
mas. Similarly, Jean Epstein directed costume pictures in
4.2, left Among the supernatural
events in Le Voyage imaginaire is a
scene in which a waxworks museum
comes to life-including ligures of
Charlie Chaplin and Jackie Coogan as
they appeared in Chaplin's 19211ilm
The Kid.
4.3, right Max Linder's comic feature
Le Petit care combines inrerrirles with
live action.
between some of his most experimental works. Jacques
Feyder was among the more commercially successful of
French directors in the 1920s, making a huge hit,
VAtlantide, in 1921; yet he made Impressionist films
from 1923 to 1926. Few Impressionists had the luxury
of working full-time in their preferred style, yet they kept
the movement going for over a decade.
Despite their avant-garde proclivities, these direc­
tors had to make their way within the regular commer­
cial finns. The first to depart from esta bl ished stylistic
traditions was Abel Gance, who had entered filmmak­
ing in 1911 as a scenarist and then began directing.
Aside from making an unreleased Melies-like fantasy,
La Folie du Dr. Tube ("Dr. Tube's Madness," 1915), he
had worked on commercial projects. With a passion for
Romantic literature and art, however, Gance aspired to
make more personal works. His La Dixieme symphonie
(1918) is the first major film of the Impressionist move­
ment. It concerns a composer who writes a symphony
so powerful that his friends consider it a successor to
Beethoven's nine symphonies. Gance suggests the listen­
ers' emotional reactions to the score by a series of
visual devices (4.4). Such a ttempts to convey sensations
and emotional "impressions" would become central to
the Impressionist movement.
La Dixieme symphonie was produced by Charles
Pathe, who continued to finance and distribute Gance's
films after the director formed his own production
4.4 In La
Dixieme
symphonie, Gance
supenmposes a
dancer over piano
keys to suggest
the su bjective
effect of a musical
passage.
 The French Impressionist Movement 89

A Chronology of French Impressionist Cinema

1918
November: Germany and Austria surrender, ending World War I.

La Dixieme symphonie ("The Tenth Symphony"), Abel Gance

Summer: Independent company, Films Abel Gance, is formed.

1919 J'Accuse ("I Accuse"), Abel Gance

Rose-France, Marcel L'Herbier

January: Louis Delluc publishes Le Journal du Cine-Club, then starts Cinea in April.
1920 Le Carnival des verites ("Carnival of Truths"), Marcel L'Herbier
L'Homme du large ("The Man of the Open Sea"), Marcel L'Herbier

1921 FiiNre ("Fever"), Louis Delluc

EI Dorado, Marcel L'Herbier

Yermoliev's emigre company becomes Films Albatros.

1922 La Femme de nulle part ("The Woman from Nowhere"), Louis Delluc

La Roue ("The Wheel"), Abel Gance

L'Auberge rouge ("The Red Inn"), Jean Epstein

Don Juan et Faust ("Don Juan and Faust"), Marcel L'Herbier
La Souriante Madame Beudet (The Smiling Madame Beudet), Germaine Dulac
1923
. Coeur fidele ("Faithful Heart"), Jean Epstein
Crainquebille, Jacques Feyder
Le Marchand de plaisir ("The Seller of Pleasure"), Jaque Catelain
Gossette ("The Little Kid"), Germaine Dulac
Le Brasier ardent ("The Burning Brazier"), Ivan Mosjoukine and Alexandre Volkoff

March: Louis Delluc dies.

La Galerie des monsters ("The Freak Show"), Jaque Catelain

L'lnondation ("The Flood"), Louis Delluc

1924
. L'lnhumaine ("The Inhuman One"), Marcel L'Herbier

Kean, Alexandre Volkoff

Catherine, Albert Dieudonne (script by Jean Renoir)

La Belle Nivernaise ("The Beautiful Nivernaise"), Jean Epstein

L'lronie du destin ("The Irony of Destiny"), Dimitri Kirsanoff

L'Affiche ("The Poster"), Jean Epstein

1925
. Visages d'enfants ("Children's Faces"), Jacques Feyder

Feu Mathias Pascal ("The Late Mathias Pascal"), Marcel L'Herbier

La Fille de I'eau ("The Daughter of the Water"), Jean Renoir

Les Films Jean Epstein is formed.

1926
. Gribiche, Jacques Feyder
Menilmontant, Dimitri Kirsanoff
6'/, x 11, Jean Epstein
1927
. La Glace a trois faces ("The Three-Sided Mirror"), Jean Epstein
Napoleon vu par Abel Gance ("Napoleon as Seen by Abel Gance"), Abel Gance

Les Films Jean Epstein goes out of business.

L'Herbier's company, Cinegraphic, is absorbed by Cineromans.
1928 . Brumes d'automne ("Autumn Mists"), Dimitri Kirsanoff
La Chute de la maison Usher (The Fall of the House of Usher), Jean Epstein
La Petite marchande d'allumettes (The Little Match Girl), Jean Renoir

L'Argent ("Money"), Marcel L'Herbier

1929 .................
Finis Terrae ("The End of the Earth"), Jean Epstein
90 CHAPTER 4 France in rhel920s
company. This was a risk for Pathe, since some Gance
films like ]'Accuse and La Roue were lengthy and ex­
pensive. Yet Gance was the most popular of the Impres­
sion ists. In 1920, an informa I poll ranked the pu blic's
favorite films. The only French productions near the top
were by Gance (the favorites being De Mille's The Cheat
and Chaplin's short comedies).
The other major firm, Gaumont, was making most
of its money from Feuillade serials. It invested some of
the profits in a group of films by Marcel L'Herbier,
whose debut work, Rose-France, was the second Im­
pressionist film. This allegory of war-battered France
was so symbolic as to be nearly incomprehensible, and
it was not widely seen. Still, L'Herbier made twO more
Impressionist films, L'Homme du large and El Dorado,
for Gaumont, and by 1920 critics began to notice that
France had a cinematic avant-garde.
Even Jean Epstein, who was to make some of the
most experimental of the Impressionist films, began
with a quasi-documentary, Pasteur (1923), for Pathe.
Germaine Dulac was hired to direct her avant-garde
character study The Smiling Madame Beudet by the
Film d'Art company, which originated the project as an
adaptation of a recent successful play.
Indeed, in these early years, the only Impressionist
filmmaker who remained at the periphery of the indus­
try was critic and theorist Louis Delluc. Using inherited
money and assistance from other filmmakers, he sup­
ported the tiny companies that produced his low-budget
films like f'ievre. A few years later, Jean Renoir, son of
painter Auguste Renoir, ventured into different types of
avant-garde filmmaking, including Impressionism, sup­
ported by his own money (derived in part from selling
some of his father's paintings). Another Impressionist
filmmaker, Dimitri Kirsanoff, worked with the most lim­
ited means of all, scraping together funds without any
production company and making inexpensive films like
L'Ironie du destin and Menilmontant.
One other firm made major contributions to Impres­
sionism in its early years. The Russian production group
YermoJiev (p. 60), fleeing the Soviet government's na­
tionalization of the film industry, settled in Paris in 1920
and reorganized as Films Albatros in 1922. At first this
firm made popular fantasies, melodramas, and the like.
The company's lead actor, Ivan Mosjoukine (who had
changed his name from the Russian Mozhukhin),
quickly became a major French star. In 1923, Albatros
produced one of the most daring of the Impressionist
films, Le Brasier ardent, codirected by Mosjoukine and
Alexandre Volkoff. In 1924, it made Kean, directed by
Volkoff and starring Mosjoukine. Though a small com­
pany, Albatros was profitable, and it also produced Im­
pressionist films by French directors: Epstein worked
there in the mid-1920s, and L'Herbier's company copro­
duced Feu Mathias Pascal with Albatros.
The most prolific and successful directors of the
movement were able to start their own companies. After
his early successes for Pathe, Gance formed Films Abel
Gance in 1919 (though it did not become financially
independent of Pathe until 1924). After a disagree­
ment with Gaumont over Don Juan et Faust in 1923,
L'Herbier formed Cinegraphic. This firm produced most
of L'Herbier's subsequent 1920s work and also financed
Delluc's L'Inondation and two Impressionist films di­
rected by one of L'Herbier's main actors, Jaque Catelain.
Epstein formed Les Films Jean Epstein in 1926 and kept
it going for two years, during which time he made some
of the Impressionist movement's most daring films. Such
independent production fostered the Impressionist move­
ment. As we shall see, after the filmmakers lost their small
companies in quick succession, the movement faded.
Impressionist Theory
The style of the Impressionist movement derived partly
from the directors' beliefs about the cinema as an art
form. They expressed these beliefs in poetic, often ab-,
struse, essays and manifestos, which helped define them
as a distinct grou p.
The Impressionists saw art as a form of expression,
conveying the personal vision of the artist: art creates an
experience, and that experience leads to emotions for
the spectator. Art creates these feelings not by making
direct statements but by evoking or suggesting them. In
short, artworks create fleeting feelings, or impressions.
By the 1920s, this view of art was a bit old-fashioned,
being rooted in nineteenth-century Romantic and Sym­
bolist aesthetics.
Cinema and the Other Arts Sometimes Impressionist
theorists claimed that the cinema is a synthesis of the
other arts. It creates spatial relationships, as architec­
ture, painting, and sculpture do. Because cinema is also
a temporal art, however, it combines its spatial qualities
with rhythmic relationships comparable to those of
music, poetry, and dance. On the other hand, Impres­
sionist theorists also treated the cinema as a pure me­
dium, presenting unique possibilities to the artist. This
claim led some filmmakers to advocate making only
cinema pur (" pure cinema"), a bstract films that concen­
trated on graphic and temporal form, often with no nar­
rative (see Chapter 8). Most Impressionists took a less
radical course, making narrative films that explored the
medium of cinema.

Whether a given writer claimed that films synthe­
sized the older arts or created a totally new art form, all
theorists agreed that film is the opposite of theater.
Much French production was condemned as mere imi­
tation of the stage. Most Impressionists believed that in
order to avoid theatricality, films should display natu­
ralistic acting. And indeed, the acting in many Impres­
sionist films is strikingly restrained. For example, as the
heroine of Menilmontant, Nadia Sibirskaia provides a
model of the Impressionists' ideal of subtle, expressive
acting (see 4.8). Similarly, the Impressionists advocated
location shooting, and their films contain many evoca­
tive landscapes and authentic village scenes.
Photogenie and Rhythm In trying to define the nature
of the film image, the Impressionits often referred to the
concept of photogenie, a term that indicates something
more complex than an object's simply being "photo­
genic." For them, photogenie was the basis of cinema.
Louis DeJluc popularized the term around 1918, using it
to define that quality that distinguishes a film shot from
the original object photographed. The process of film­
ing, according to Delluc, lends an object a new expres­
siveness by giving the viewer a fresh perception of it.
Kirsanoff wrote, "Each thing existing in the world
knows another existence on the screen.,,2 As this sen­
tence suggests, photogenie could become a mystical con­
cept. If we pin it down a bit, we can say that photogenie
is created by the properties of the camera: framing iso­
lates objects from their environment, black-and-white
film stock transforms their appearance, special optical
effects further change them, and so on. By such means,
Impressionist theorists believed, the cinema gives us ac­
cess to a realm beyond everyday experience. It shows us
the souls of people and the essences of objects.
With respect to film form, the Impressionists in­
sisted that cinema should not imitate theatrical or liter­
ary narratives. They also argued that film form should
be based on visual rhythm. This idea stems from the Im­
pressionists' belief that emotions, rather than stories,
should be the basis for films. The rhythm arises from
the careful juxtaposition of the movements within the
shots and the lengths of the shots themselves. In a lec­
ture, Germaine Dulac analyzed the rhythm of a moment
in Marcel Silver's L'Horloge ("The Clock," 1924) in
which a calm love scene abruptly ends as the pair real­
ize they must return home immediately:
The excitement begins once the thought of the clock
suddenly shatters their happy musing. From then on,
the images succeed each other in a mad rhythm. The
throbbing vision of the pendulum contrasted with
The French Impressionist Movement 91
the two lovers rushing toward one another creates the
drama .... Short images ... the sensation of the long
road the two lovers must traverse, and the obsessive­
ness punctuating the action. Interminable paths, a still
imperceptible village. The pendulum is emphasized in­
sofar as the author wants to give us the sense of dis­
tance in the other shots. By the choice of images, their
length, and their contrasts, rhythm becomes the sole
source of emotion 3
For the Impressionists, rhythm was central, because
it offered a way to emphasize the characters' reactions
to story action rather than focusing solely on the action
itself. The Impressionists insisted that their attention to
rhythm put their films closer to music than to any other
art form.
Formal Traits of Impressionism
These assumptions about the nature of cinema had a
considerable impact on the Impressionist films' style
and narrative structure. Most important, filmic tech­
niques often function to convey character subjectivity.
This subjectivity includes mental images, such as vi­
sions, dreams or memories; optical point-of-view (POV)
shots; and characters' perceptions of events rendered
without POV shots. While it is true that films in all
countries had used such devices as superimpositions and
flashbacks to show characters' thoughts or feelings, the
Impressionists went much further in this direction.
Devices of the Camera As we have just seen, the Im­
pressionists were concerned about enhancing the pho­
togenie of their films. Because of this, and because of
their interest in character subjectivity, many of the Im­
pressionists' innovations involve camera work. Most ob­
viously, Impressionist films frequently contain optical
devices that affect the look of the photographic image.
Such optical devices might be present to enhance
the image by making it more striking or beautiful (4.5,
4.6). More often, though, optical tricks convey charac­
ters' impressions. Superimpositions may convey a char­
acter's thought or memories (4.7,4.8). A filter placed
over the lens may function to suggest subjectivity,
usually without the shot's being taken from the charac­
ter's optical point of view. In L'Herbier's El Dorado, the
heroine is a performer in a Spanish cabaret. While on­
stage, she worries about her sick son, and her distrac­
tion is suggested by a filter that blurs her figure but not
the women around her (4.9). As the other women snap
her out of her reverie, the filter disappears and she
comes into sharp view (4.10). Here the feelings con­
veyed are those of the heroine, and the shot is not taken
92 CHAPTER 4 France in the 1920s

4.5 Gance's La ROlle contains many
oval and round masks to change the
rectangular shape of the image.
4.6 In L'Herbier's Rose-France, an
elaborate mask divides the frame into
three images, centering the heroine as if
in a traditional triptych p'linting.
4.7 As the hero of L'Herbier's Feu
Mathias Pascal sits in a moving train, we
see what he is thinking through a series
of images of his village and family, super­
imposed over the moving train tracks.

4.8 When the heroine of lvlenilmontant 4.9.4.10 A filter creates a subjective effect in £1 Dorado.
stands on a bridge and contemplates
suicide, the superimposition of the river
over her face suggests her mental
turmoil.

4.11 Filters achieve a subjective effect 4.12 In a POV shot of M. Beudet, his 4.13 A shot made using a curved
in the wedding-night scene in Napoleon. wife's dislike leads her to see him as mirror, from L:Herbier's EI Dorado
grotesque.

from anyone's point of view. In Gance's Napoleon, the
passion of Napoleon and Josephine as they kiss on their
wedding night is conveyed by a series of gauze filters
that drop one by one between the couple and the lens,
gradually blurring the screen to gray (4.11).
Occasiona Ily the 1m pression ists wou ld shoot inro
a curved mirror to distort the image. Such distortions
could create a POY shot, as in Dulac's The Smiling
Madame Beudet; this film contains many optical de­
vices that convey the heroine's unhappiness with her
boorish husband (4.12). L'Herbier uses a similar mir­
ror shot in El Dorado (4.13), but here the framing is
not from anyone's poinr of view; it simply conveys the
man's drunkenness subjectively.
 The French Impressionist Movemenr 93

4.14,4.15 In Le Brasier ardent, the

image goes out of focus to suggest the
heroine's mental abstraction.

4.16,4.17 A POV shot in La Fille de

I'eau shows the hero's vision blurred as
,1 result of a beating.

4.18 In Jacques Feyder's Visages 4.19 A drunken woman's dizziness is 4.20 In Feu Mathias Pascal, Ma thias
d'enfants, a low camera height and conveyed in Fell Mathias Pascal dreams of leaping on his enemy.
slightly low angle show the optical rhrough a canted framing as she
point of view of a child being scolded. staggers a long a hallwa y.

Throwing the lens out of focus could also convey sub­

jectivity, vvhether we see the characters or see through
their eyes. In Le Brasier ardent, tne heroine and her hus­
band have just agreed to divorce, and she sadly stands
thinking (4.14, 4.15). After the hero of Renoir's La Fille
de l'eau has been in a fight, he sits groggily as a POV shot
conveys his mental state (4.16,4.17). Similarly, the fram­
ing of a shot may suggest characters' points of view or
inner states (4.18,4.19).
Virtually any manipulation of the camera could be
used subjectively. Slow motion was common in render­
ing mental images (4.20). In Napoleon, Gance divided
the frame into a grid of smaller, distinct images (4.21). 4.21 In 8 split-screen process he called Polyvision, Ganee
He also used tnree cameras side by side to create an conveyed the chaos of a pillow fight in Napoleon.
94 CHAPTER 4 France in rhe 1920s
4.22 In Napoleon, three images joined horizontally create an epic vista of the hero
surveying his troops.
extremely wide format called a triptych (4.22). This
functioned to create wide vistas, symbolic juxtaposi­
tions of images, and occasional subjective effects.
Impressionist films also feature camera movements
that convey subjectivity and enhance phorogenie. Mov­
ing shots could suggest the character's optical point of
view (4.23). The moving camera could also convey sub­
jectivity without optical point of view, as in the carnival
scene in Epstein's Coeur fide/e. Here the heroine sits
miserably on a carnival ride with the fiance her parents
have forced on her (4.24).
Devices of Editing Until 1923, camera devices for
achieving photogenie and expressing subjectivity were
the main distinguishing traits of Impressionism. In that
year, however, two films appeared that experimented
with quick editing to explore characters' mental states.
Gance's La Roue (which premiered in December of
1922 but was released in February of 1923) contains
several scenes with very fast cutting. In one sequence,
many short shots convey the overwrought emotions of
the hero, Sisif. A railway engineer, he has fallen in love
with Norma, a woman whom he has raised from a child
and who thinks she is his daughter. He is driving the
train upon which she is riding into the city to be mar­
4.23, left In Napoleon, Gance
mounted the camera on a horse's back,
purring us in the hero's position as he
flees from pursuing soldiers.
4.24, right In Coeur fide/e, the camera
is mounted on the swing along with the
couple so thar the background whirls
past as the woman and her !lance sit
unmoving in the foreground.
ried. In despair, he opens the throttle of the train, plan­
ning to crash it and kill himself and everyone a board
(4.25-4.31). Figures 4.25 through 4.31 are respectively
eleven, fourteen, fourteen, seven, six, !lve, and six frames
long. Given that projection speeds were about twenty
frames per second at this time, each shot would last less
than a second, and the shortest would remain on the
screen for only about a quarter of a second. Here excite­
ment is conveyed less through acting than through a
rhythmic rush of swift details.
Later in La Roue, Sisif's son Elie, who also loves
Norma, has fallen over a cliff during a fight with her
husband. As he dangles, he hears Norma calling and
running to his rescue. Suddenly a close-up of his face
introduces a radically abbreviated series of shots. Each
is only one frame in length, showing Elie and Norma in
situations from earlier scenes in the film. This barrage
of instantaneous flashbacks is toO brief to register on
the eye (since twenty of them would pass in a single sec­
ond). The effect is a flicker, suggesting the confusion of
Elie's emotions as he recognizes Norma's voice and then
falls to his death. This scene is the first known use of
single-frame shots in film history. Such segments of
rhythmic montage made La Roue an enormously influ­
ential film during the 1920s.
 The French Impressionist Movement 95

J.]/h.~· "'.~; . . ,.

1\. " I
,_ - I
}: '-------.::::

't;..;'t;
4.25 4.26 4.27

4.28 4.29 4.30

4.25-4.31 In La 4.32 A shot

Roue, a long series from Coeur fide Ie
of shots, graduaJly lasting fifteen
decreasing in frames.
length, suggests
the train's
dangerous
accelera tion,
Norma's growing
anxiety, and Sisif's
anguish.

4.31
4.33 The next
shot contains
Another film, Epstein's Coeur fidele, whicb ap­ nineteen frames.
peared in tbe autumn of 1923, also drew upon fast edit­
ing. We have already seen how the moving camera in the
carnival scene helps suggest the heroine's unhappiness.
The editing enhances this effect. As in La Roue's train
scene, details appear in a series of about sixty brief shots
of the objects around the whirling-swings ride. Most of
these shots are well under one second, and many are
only two frames long. One brief segment, for example,
shows the man the woman actually loves looking on
from the ground (4.32), a quick long shot of the ride and making. It appears in the disorienting opening sequence
crowd (4.33), then quick flashes of two frames each of of Menilmontant, where the violence of a double mur­
the heroine and her thuggish fiance (4.34, 4.35). der is conveyed through details caught in close, shon
After the release of La Roue and Coeur fide/e, fast shots. Gance pushed the technique he had innovated
rhythmic editing became a staple of Impressionist film- even further in the final scene of Napo/eon by using
96 CHAPTER 4 France in the 19205
4.34,4.35 Two two-frame shots follow. 4.36 In Epstein's L'Af{iche, the tools
4.37 In Albert Dieudonne's Catherine, 4.38,4.39 [n Kean, we see a shotlreverse shot of the hero and heroine
the heroine and her lover look through through a curtain that suggests their points of view.
a curtained window.
swift editing in a triptych sequence, with rapid changes
in three side-by-side frames, combined with multiple
superimpositions. With fast cutting, the Impressionists
achieved something of the visual rhythm they had called
for in their writings.
Devices of Mise-en-Scene Since the Impressionists
were interested primarily in the effects of camera work
and editing on the subjects filmed, fewer distinctive
traits of the movement lie in the area of mise-en-scene.
Still, we can make some generalizations about this as­
pect of their style. Perhaps most important, the Impres­
sionists were concerned about lighting objects to en­
hance their phorogenie as much as possible (4.36).
If filters placed over the lens could enhance a shot's
photographic effect, then shooting through some translu­
cent object placed in the setting of the scene could do the
same. The Impressionists often shot through textured
curtains (4.3 7). In Kean, the hero's first meeting with the
woman he will love has him holding a gauzy curtain up
between them (4.38, 4.39)
Finally, the Impressionists often tried to use striking
settings. They did so in two opposing ways: first, by em­
the heroine uses in making artificial
flowers are turned into a striking still
life through arrangement and lighting.
ploying modernist decor and, second, by filming in real
locations.
In French society in general, "modern" design of
the type now labeled Art Deco was fashionable at the
time. Some of the filmmakers used celebrated architects
and artists as designers (4.40, 4.41). As we saw earlier
in this chapter, however, much French filmmaking of the
1920s depended in part on location shooting, and the
Impressionists found photogenie in natural landscapes
(4.42). L'Herbier obtained unprecedented permission to
shoot in the Alhambra in Spain for El Dorado, and part
of Feu Mathias Pascal was done on location in Rome.
The last portion of La Roue was filmed largely in the
Swiss Alps, resulting in some arresting shots (4.43).
Impressionist Narratives The Impressionists' stylistic
devices were startlingly innovative, yet most of their
narratives were conventional. The plots place charac­
ters in extremely emotion-laden circumstances. A situa­
tion may trigger memories, which lead to flashbacks, or
it may inspire visions of the characters' desires, or it
may lead the character to get drunk, motivating dis­
torted views of his or her surroundings. Impressionist

4.40 For L'Jnhumaine, L;Herbier had the great French
modern artist Fernand Leger design the Jaborarory of the
scientist-hero.
characters faint, go blind, or fall into despair, and these
states are vividly rendered through camera techniques.
As a result, Impressionist narratives depend to a con­
siderable extent on psychological motivation. As in clas­
sical narra ti ves, ca use and effect operate, bu t ca uses arise
largely from characters' conflicting traits and obsessions.
In L'Herbier's Feu Mathias Pascal, for example, a man
living in a small French town marries, and his mother-in­
law makes the couple miserable. In despair he seizes
upon an accident that makes it appear that he has died.
He takes up a new identity in Rome and falls in love­
triggering visions and dreams of a new life. The entire
film centers around his motivations and reactions.
In Impressionist films, the devices of camerawork,
editing, and mise-en-scene that we have described do
not occur continuously throughout the narrative. In­
stead, the action usually progresses in a conventional
fashion, punctuated by scenes in which we linger over
characters' reactions and mental states. At the begin­
ning of El Dorado, for example, there is a lengthy scene
The French Impressionist Movement 97
4.41 The exterior of the heroine's house was done by Rob
MaUet-Stevens-who was using similar designs for some of
the most up-ro-date buildings in Paris.
in which the heroine thinks of her sick son, with filters
suggesting her lack of attention to the events around her
(see 4.9, 4.10). Yet much of the film is a conventionally
melodramatic story of how she came to be in this situa­
tion and how she strives to escape from it.
Only a few Impressionist films attempted to create
innovative narrative patterns that would make charac­
ter subjectivity the basis for an entire film's form. Dulac
achieves this in a relatively simple way with The Smil­
ing Madame Beudet; this brief film contains only the
simplest of plots, concentrating almost entirely on the
heroine's fantasy life and hatred of her husband. In one
of the Impressionist movement's most daring films, La
Glace it trois faces, Epstein created a shifting, ambigu­
ous plot. Three very different women describe their re­
lations with the same man, and their tales create a con­
tradictory idea of him. In the final scene, after writing
4.42 In L'Inondation, Delluc filmed a
character walking along a country road
with the sun opposite the camera,
transforming the landscape into one of
the film's many lovely compositions.
4.43 In La Roue, a fight leaves the
heroine's husband lying arop a cliff high
above a distant landscape.
98 CHAPTER 4 France in the 1920s
to each woman with a different excuse for not meeting
her, the hero has a fatal car accident. Nearly all the nar­
rative information has been filtered through the three
women's perceptions, and our direct views of the hero
reveal little about him. The final, symbolic shot shows
him reflected in a triple mirror, suggesting the impossi­
bility of pinning down any truth about him. Few narra­
tive films of the silent era departed so thoroughly from
classical storytelling conventions. The innovations of
La Glace a trois faces would resurface in the European
art cinema of the 1950s and 1960s.
THE END OF FRENCH IMPRESSIONISM
Of the three European movements that overlapped dur­
ing the 1920s, French Impressionism lasted the longest,
from 1918 to early 1929. Late in the decade, several
factors contributed to its decline. As the movement be­
came better established, the interests of its filmmakers
became more diverse. In addition, significant changes
within the French film industry made it more difficult
for some of them to retain control over their own work.
The Filmmakers Go Their Own Ways
In the late 1910s and the first half of the 1920s, the Im­
pressionists formed a tightly knit group, supporting
each other in their mission to establish an alternative,
artistic cinema. By mid-decade, they had succeeded to a
considerable extent. While many of their films did not
attract large audiences, they often received favorable
reviews and were appreciated by the audiences of the
cine-clubs and art theaters. In 1925, Leon Moussinac, a
leftist critic sympathetic to the Impressionists, published
Naissance du cinema ("The Birth of the Cinema"); there
he summed up the movement's stylistic traits and the
theoretical views of its filmmakers. Largely based on
Delluc's writings, Moussinac's account stressed expres­
sive techniques like slow motion and superimpositions,
and it singled out the Impressionist group as the most
interesting French filmmakers. His summary came at an
appropriate time, since no significant concepts were de­
veloped in Impressionist theory after this point.
There was also a growing sense that the very suc­
cess of Impressionism had led to a diffusion of its tech­
niques and hence to a lessening of their impact. In 1927,
Epstein remarked, "Original devices such as rapid mon­
tage or the tracking or panning camera are now vulgar­
ized. They are old hat, and it is necessary to eliminate
visibly obvious style in order to create a simple film.,,4
Indeed, Epstein increasingly presented simple stories in
a quasi-documentary style, using nonactors and elimi­
nating flashy Impressionist camerawork and editing.
His last Impressionist film, Finis Terrae, portrays two
young lighthouse keepers on a rugged island; subjective
camera techniques appear mainly when one youth falls
ill. Epstein's early sound film, Mor- Vran (1931) eschews
Impressionist style altogether in a restrained, poetic nar­
rative of villagers on a desolate island.
Perhaps because the style's techniques were becom­
ing somewhat commonplace, other Impressionist film­
makers began to experiment in different directions. If
the era from 1918 to 1922 can be said to have been
characterized primarily by pictorial ism, and the period
from 1923 to 1925 by the addition of rhythmic cutting,
then the later years, 1926 to 1929, saw a greater diffu­
sion in the movement. By 1926 some Impressionist di­
rectors had achieved considerable independence by
forming their own small producing companies. More­
over, the support provided by the cine-clubs and small
cinemas now allowed the production of low-budget ex­
perimental films. As a result of both these factors, the
late Impressionist period saw a proliferation of short
films, such as Kirsanoff's Menilmontant and the four
films produced by Les Films Jean Epstein.
Another factor diversifying the Impressionist move­
ment was the impact of experimental films. As we shall
see in Chapter 8, Surrealist, Dadaist, and abstract films
often shared the programs of the cine-clubs and art cin­
emas with Impressionist films in the mid- to late 1920s.
These tendencies were lumped in the category of cinema
pur. Dulac wrote and lectured extensively in favor of
cinema pur, and in 1928 she abandoned commercial
filmmaking to direct a Surrealist film, The Seashell and
the Clergyman. Thereafter she concentrated on abstract
short films.
Problems within the Film Industry
Such stylistic diffusion might eventually have destroyed
any unity among the Impressionists' work and ended
the movement. In any event, the late 1920s saw a swift
decline in these directors' independence. For one thing,
their situation as small producers had always been
shaky. They did not own their own studios but had to
rent facilities for shooting. Each film had to be financed
separately, and a filmmaker's credit was typically based
on the success of the previous film.
Moreover, by the late 1920s, the large distribution
firms were less interested in financing Impressionist
films. In the nrst years of the movement, as we have
seen, there had been some hope that these distinctive
films might be competitive in the United States and Ger­

many. Only a few Impressionist films, however, were
exported to these markets, and even fewer met with suc­
cess. The experiments of the late 1920s were hardly cal­
culated to make these films more competitive, either at
home or abroad.
Ironically, by 1926 the French economy as a whole
was doing better than at any point since the war's end.
Inflation was finally curbed in that year. From 1926 to
the end of the decade, France experienced the same
boom period that most other countries were enjoying.
By the late 1920s, the film industry was showing some
signs of strength. Several of the larger production firms
merged during 1929 to form two major companies:
Pathe, Natan, and Cineromans merged into Pathe­
Natan, and another combination of three firms created
Gaumont-Franco-Film-Aubert. (As we shall see in
Chapter 13, the strength of the French film industry was
largely illusory and definitely transitory.)
The Impressionists fared badly during the late
1920s, with most losing their independent companies.
In 1928 Cineromans absorbed L'Herbier's Cinegraphic,
reediting his expensive production, L'Argent. L'Herbier
quit, but he was forced into more commercial projects
in the sound era. That same year, Les Films Jean Epstein
went out of business, though Epstein obtained indepen­
dent backing for his modest non-Impressionist films.
The tangled production history and huge budget of
Napoleon made it impossible for Gance to remain inde­
pendent; thereafter he was strictly supervised by his
backers, and his subsequent films contain, at best, a
shadow of his earlier experimentation.
The introduction of sound in 1929 made it virtually
impossible for the Impressionists to regain their indepen­
dence. Sound production was costly, and it became more
difficult to scrape together financing for even a short,
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Notes and Queries
FRENCH IMPRESSIONIST THEORY AND CRITICISM
The Impressionists' theoretical writings are still less well
known, especially to English-language readers, than are
those of the Soviet Montage grou p and more recent writ­
ers. There are some helpful basic sources in English, how­
ever. For brief introductions to Impressionist theory, see
David Bordwell, French Impressionist Cinema: Film Cul­
ture, Film Theory, and Film Style (New York: Arno, 1980),
chap. 3; and Stuart Liebman, "French Film Theory,
1910-1921," Quarterly Review of Film Studies, 8, no. 1
(winter 1983); 1-23.
Notes and Queries 99
low-budget, avant-garde feature. In 1968, L'Herbier
recalled the situation:
When sound arrived, the working conditions in the
profession became very difficult for a director like me.
lt was out of the question, for economic reasons, to
envision films in the talking era like those which we
had made in the silent era, perhaps even at the author's
[i.e., the director's] expense. One had to censor one­
self considera bly and even, in my case, to adopt forms
of cinema which I had always held in contempt. All at
once, we were constrained, on account of talk, to do
canned theater pieces, pure and simple. s
Although the French cinema of the 1930s created sev­
eral distinctive trends, none of the major Impressionist
filmmakers played a prominent role in that creation.
Despite the Impressionist films' limited circulation
abroad, they influenced other filmmakers. As we shall
see in Chapter 5, the freely moving camera used to con­
vey a character's perceptual experience was quickly
picked up by German filmmakers, who popularized this
technique and usually have gotten credit for inventing
it. Perhaps the most famous artist to carryon the Im­
pressionist tradition was the young designer and direc­
tor Alfred Hitchcock, who absorbed influences from
American, French, and German films during the 1920s.
His 1927 film The Ring could pass for an Impressionist
film (see p. 170), and during his long career, Hitchcock
became a master of the precise, using camera placement,
framing, special effects, and camera movement to con­
vey what his characters see and think. Character sub­
jectivity has long been a staple element of storytelling,
and the Impressionists were the filmmakers who ex­
plored this aspect of film most thoroughly.
• • • 0 0 • • u • • • • • • • • D • • • ~ • • •
An extensive sampling of writings by Impressionists and
by critics supportive of avant-garde cinema has been trans­
lated in Richard Abel's French Film Theory and Criticism
1907-1939, vol. 1 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1988): Abel introduces each section of this book, pro­
viding a historical context for the writings. Collections of the
writings of three major Impressionist theorists have made
their work more accessible: Louis Delluc, Ecrits cine­
matographiques, I, "Le Cinema et les Cineastes" (Paris:
Cinematheque Fran~aise, 1985), II (in two volumes)
"Cinema et Cie" (same, 1986 and 1990), and III, "Drames
de Cinema" (same, 1990); Jean Epstein, Ecrits sur Ie cinema,
100 CHAPTER 4 France in rhe 1920s
2 vols. (Paris: Editions Seghers, 1974 and 1975); and Ger­
maine Dulac, faits sur Ie cinema (1919-1937), Prosper
Hillairet, ed. (Paris: Paris Experimental, 1994). The complete
run of an important film journal to which several of the Im­
pressionists contributed essays has been reprinted: L'Art
Cinematographique No. 1-8 (New York: Arno, 1970).
RESTORATION WORK ON NAPOLEON
Like many other types of silent cinema, French Impression­
ist films are seldom seen by modern audiences. Few prints
are in distribution, and some films have disappeared or sur­
vive only in truncated versions. For instance, Kirsanoff's
first film, L'!ronie du destin (1924), is apparently lost for­
ever, and there is probably no print of Gance's La Roue as
long as the original version. Resroration efforts continue,
however. 1nl987 the Cinematheque Franc;aise completed
work on a pristine new print of Dulac's Gossette, of which
only fragments had previously been viewable.
Undou bted Iy the most famous restora tion project has
been Gance's Napoleon. 1£ is not clear that this epic was
ever shown exactly as Gance intended it. The longest ver­
sion ran clbout six hours, but showings of it did not include
the two side screens for the triptych sequences. Subsequent
versions cur the film by more than half, and the triptychs
were often eliminated. As the film was edited and reedited,
scenes vanished.
1£s reconstruction was initiated in 1969 and largely
carried out by historian Kevin Brownlow. jacques Ledoux,
curator of the Royal Film Archive of Belgium, coordinated
the search for footage preserved in other archives around
the world. By 1979, a lengthy version premiered at the Tel­
luride Film Festival. Over the next few years, other gala
screenings were held in theaters and museums-but be­
cause more footage kept turning up, some of these versions
were even longer. To complicate matrers, Francis Ford
Coppola arranged for a much-publicized run, with live or­
chestral accompaniment, at Radio Ciry Music Hall in New
York. The event was a huge success financially, but the
REFERENCES
1. Henri Diamant-Berger, "Pour sauveI' Ie film franc;ais,"
Le Filrn 153 (16 February 1918): 9.
2. Dimitri Kirsanoff, "Problemes de la photogenie,"
Cinea-Cine pour tous 62 (1 june 1926): 10.
3. Germaine Dulac, "The Expressive Techniques of the
Cinema," tr. Stuart Liebman, in Richard Abel, ed.,
French Film Theory and Criticism: 1907-1939,
vol. ] (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988),
p.307.
4. Remy Duval, "M. jean Epstein," Comoedia 5374 (23
September 1927): 3.
5. Jean-Andre Fieschi, "Autour du Cinematographie: En­
tretien avec Marcel L'Herbier," Cahiers du cinema 202
(June/j u ly 1968): 41.
Coppola release version removed about twenty minutes
of footage to fit it into a four-hour time slot. (This short­
ened version was released on videotape.) Later, more
footage turned up, and a second triptych sequence was re­
covered; even so, the film is still incomplete. For an ac­
count of the reconstruction work to 1982 (as well as a his­
rory of the film's production and exhibition in the 1920s),
see Brownlow's Napoleon: Abel Cance's Classic Film
(New York: Knopf, 1983). The first chapter of Norman
King's Abel Gance: A Politics of Spectacle (London: British
Film Institute, 1984) discusses the ideological implications
of the revival of Gance's work.
Napoleon is an unusual case, but it indicates that we
should view with caution claims about "restored" or "re­
constructed" versions. Sometimes these are simply new
prints of the film, not versions that duplicate it as it was
originally seen. Man y preserved fi Ims lack all thei r in ter­
titles, and new ones may be added that are derived from a
source other than the original film (a script or a censorship
document, for example) and hence Olay not be exaCt repli­
cas. Some restoration work adds colors or edits rogether
surviving fragments largely on the basis of educated guess­
work. Sadly, some footage may remain lost. For example,
the so-called restored version of the 1927 German Expres­
sionist film Metropolis, released with a pop-music score in
]984, was actually missing well over an hour of footage­
those portions of the film not known to survive anywhere.
The attempt to reconstruct MetrolJolis continues, with the
recent discovery of a print of superior visual quality.
Archivist Enno Patalas outlines the history of the restora­
tion of this film in "The City of the Future-A Film of
Ruins: On the Work of the Munich Film Museum," in
Michael Minden and Holger Bachmann, eds., Fritz Lang's
Metropolis: Cinema Visions of Technology and Fear
(Rochester: Camden, 2000), pp. 111-22. Patalas has also
published a script of the film with phoros and drawings fill­
ing in the lost scenes. See his Metropolis inlaus Triimmern:
Eine Filmgeschichte (Berlin: Bertz, 2001).
For informarion on variations among original release
prints, see the "Notes and Queries," Chapter 8.
FURTHER READING
Abel, Richard. French Cinema: The First Wave, 19:1 5-1929.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984.
a
Albera, Franc;ois. Albatros: des Russes Paris, 1919-1929.
Milan: Mazzotta/Cinematheque Franc;aise, J 995.
Ghali, Noureddine. L'avant-garde cinematographique en
France dans les annees vingt: idees, conceptions, the­
ories. Paris: Paris Experimental, 1995.
Icart, Roger. Abel Gance. Lausanne: L'Age d'Homme,
'1983.
Kaplan, Nelly. Napoleon. Bernard McQuirk, tr. and ed.
London: British Film Institute, 1994.
Thompson, Krisrin. "The Ermolieff Group in Paris: Exile,
Impressionism, Internationalism." Griffithiana 35/36
(October 1989): 48-57.